It’s tempting, given the pace of our news cycle these days, to resist the urge to crown any one event as a watershed moment. But at this moment, that resistance is hard to maintain. The January 24 shooting of a nurse named Alex Pretti in Minnesota may turn out to be just such a cataclysm.
This one feels different. When Renée Good, another anti-ICE protestor, was shot and killed on January 7 after she refused to comply with federal agents’ instructions and get out of her car, the public debate focused primarily on trying to ascertain whether or not Good was attempting to run an agent over with her Honda Pilot. For days, social media platforms and news outlets shared videos of the incident, taken from several angles, and the argument, heated as it was, revolved around an attempt to declare Good incontrovertibly guilty or innocent.
No such presumption of an ultimately knowable truth accompanied the killing of Pretti. Although some time was spent debating specific questions, such as the point at which the late nurse was disarmed of his handgun, the energy was all feeling and no facts.
I’ve spent days collecting responses to Pretti’s killing, culled from various sources, ranging from public posts to private communications on WhatsApp groups and text chains. Take this sample with a grain of salt, but ignore it at your peril.
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